Two original fiction anthologies at his request. Steve just been marvelous friend and colleague. In 1984, our visual publisher sent me a manuscript written by a vietnam war aviator for each other. I said this book is so good, if you dont publish it i will. Next year it was published fight of the intruder. He came up with the concept of a former military contractor that does deniable work for the u. S. Government all over the world. That was a trilogy that was a fun change of pace for me because i hadnt done anything in the trilogy realm. That was an education. Im sure it was. Youre a wonderful writer. I think your nonfiction reads with all the fiction and thriller. You grew up flying airplanes . Where does all of this aviation background come from im an Eastern Oregon ranch kid. Grew up literally next to family crop duster strip. In any hometown, population 950. Airplanes were always overhead. That combined with my dad who had been trained as a naval ayeator aviator in world war ii. I was blessed. I used that word. I was blessed to grow up help restore vintage airplane and refly them. Overall, i had between 500 hours and 600 hours flying Navy Airplanes from the world war ii era. Thats been a tremendous benefit to me. Both in history and fiction. Im sure those of you realize he has a en encyclopedia. I will talk about the dday. Its an update. And probably to commemorate the anniversary of the june 6, 1944 dday landing. Right. Originally the book was publish published by brassy for the 60th anniversary. Then it lapsed. I woke up one morning and realized oh my gosh. In 12 to 14 months, were going to have the 70th anniversary. I eventually wound up doing an update. All of the deceased dates were filled in. There are none of the historic figures still living. I havent thought about that. I was going to ask you if there was new material that has come out from release records and that kind of thing that would have changed some of the information that you had in the original version. I did expand upon a few of the entries. I know one had to do with intelligence from the allied side. Couple of other entries were expanded on the bases of additional information. One of them had to do with the british and canadian canadiannavy participation. This has been very well received. As an author its good to get feedback from readers. Two of them, its a wonderful book because most of the industries entries are right length for bathroom reading. I started this yesterday. I wont say where i was sitting. I did dip in and out it. I was born in 1940. I dont have actual memories of the war or received. As an author its dday. My parents talked about many of theosophics in the figures in the years after the war. Reading the books was not a refresher course but the personalities and things that you dont know when when youre living through it, its different when you go back. Vietnam was my war. Now when i read about vietnam, i think why i didnt know about them. You cant tell. One of the things i thought was interesting in the encyclopedia was the personality. My question would be, was he there because he was a great general was he there he was great at logistics or politics . He was great at politics. The conventional wisdom for many years after the war was that ike was the one who held together the alliance. Thats certainly an exaggeration. The the other aspect was sense america provided the huge majority of the manpower for the liberation of northwestern europe it was a given that eisenhower but his family were british. Charles was the Deputy Commander and heads of the navy and the air campaigns also were british. It was pretty much a balance between the angelo americans. It was by committee. So many different components. You also talk about obviously you have a great fond of Jimmy Dolittle whos primary theory was the pacific. He did an awful lot in the european war. I was very fortunate to get to know general jimmy. He liked to be called somewhat. That will reflect later on, forgotten fifteen. He came to world prominence with the april 1942 bombing raid of tokyo and five other cities in that area. During concept launching army twin engine bombers from an Aircraft Carrier and that aspect of it worked. It turned out they had to launch a few hundred miles earlier than expected so all the planes except one ran out of fuel. That ran an immediate promotion than Lieutenant Colonel dolittle. He received medal of honor and he was almost immediately sent to north africa where he learned the general biz running the north African Allied air forces. By the time he came to italy in november of 1943 to run the 15th air force, he was very much a known quantity. He was only there two months, before eisenhower called him to return to benefit. The weather didnt cooperate for dday. You had that very low cloud cover. You wrote it. The bombers ended up being too far back to really protect the people. The air plan that i found in the air force archives shows the normandy coast running eastwest. Heavy bombers based in britain just 30 miles away were approaching the german occupied beaches at a perpendicular angle. The navy said we dont want the bombers dropping short because they will endanger the ships offshore. The long story short, most of the bombs fell 1. 5 to 3 miles behind the beaches. Had did no benefit. Any of you traveled england know how terrible the weather is. They had the tides to worry about. There really was no perfect day. Dday was originally scheduled june 5th. Eisenhower agreed they would have a 24 hour weather hold. After that, it was either all or nothing because the next favorable tides and moon phase were about three weeks down stream. Isnt that amazing to think this was kept a secret . Think about it today with satellites and social media. There was no way it could ever. I find it fascinating and well get to desense in deception. John ford, you give him a big entry. Why . John ford was a navy groupie. Even though his prewar fame as a movie director had nothing to do with naval subjects, as i recall, he was born in maine. Grew up on the rock bound coast so salt water was in his vains early on. When world war ii started he basically knocked on the navys door and said, here i am. Make use of me. He was given a direct commission, i think as a Lieutenant Commander with a film crew. He had visiting privileges almost anywhere. Does a little known but superb color documentary that his crew made right after the battle of midway in june of 1942. Hes well known for that documentary. Less well known is the fact that his film crew was a board navy and coast guard ships. Some of the combat footage we see in the Tv Documentaries were shot business he cameramen. When you think about it. I was fascinating to see. You know the person i like the best is a british person simon fraser. Lucky him there was actually a war in the 20th century. He was a man born to fight. Absolutely he was. He was the senior commando in the British Armed forces. Born and bred in the scottish highlands. If there hadnt been a war, he would have found way to start one. Hes one of these natural born warrior whos life would have been wasted. Even though he was severely wounded duringthe Normandy Campaign, in the anticipation of death, he told a subordinate later, the water is not over. He got back into combat before the war ended. He probably wouldnt have survived those wounds. He was fortunate the technology caught up with him. You talk about lots of other figures. There are four politicians that we should briefly mention. Charles gold who has been controversial up in france and among the allies. You give him pretty good ratings. He was progressive military theorist before world war ii. He had spent most of world war i as prison of the journalist. Consequently his seniority was such that when france fell in june of 1940, the gaal evacuated to britain. He became a significant factor in allied planning. I think the most wonderful statement made about him was from Winston Churchill who said, the greatest cross i must bare is the cross of the rain. Somebody had to be running a french government. When the germans were kicked out, they could actually function. It was vacuum at that point. The goal was able to do that. Most of us know enough about churchill. Although you definitely talk about him. This book is about dday. I thought you said something about franklin roosevelt. Theres a lot of medical theories about if this person or this illness hadnt gone on it would have been different. If napoleon hadnt suffered from hemorrhoids, he might not have lost. He couldnt sit on his horse. Fdr in this book should not have run for a fourth term . Correct. He was done. He was a dying man. If you look at the films especially from the conference about six weeks before he died, thats a dying man. He really should have stepped down. It was not in him to vacate the presidency. The reason was, there was a paralysis when he was so ill. There wasnt anybody actually able. I read things that say that pat could have made it to berlin before the russians but he was unable to. Because there was no american functioning command from january to march when roosevelt died. Truman didnt know about the bomb. I always thought that harry truman, a person who had absolutely training for any of the role that fell upon him. You think about some of the he learned from the treaty, he did not have a punishing treaty. He did all that stuff. Roosevelt had such contempt for him, he didnt take him into his confidence for anything. It would have been fascinating to be the fly on the wall when the day truman was inaugurate. It was general marshall, chief of staff, mr. President theres something you need to know about going out in new mexico. Hitler, you get great he gets greats points being a great politician. The question i wondered, i think the same thing about napoleon. Why . Why russia . Both of them. Why couldnt they stick to europe and be happy with that . Maybe thats not part of a personality like that. Apparently it is not barbara. I think the one thing that napoleon and hitler had in common, they believed their own p. R. And drinking their own cool aid. Alexander the great was the same . The great captains of history typically overreach themselves. Theyre a victim of their own success. I think thats true. We talked about the people. You give a lot of space to the various armed forces, land, sea and air. On the american and british and the german front. You talk about the weaponry of the kinds of planes and the kinds of guns and you give credit to two american gun designers mr. Browning, sorry i dont remember the other one. John gerund was born a canadian and became a u. S. Citizen. He span about 12 years designing what became the m1 semiautomatic rifle that meant that the u. S. Armed forces were the only ones in the Second World War entirely equipped with the semiautomatic rifle. That made a big difference. Then john m. Browning, made it more genius utah, mormon gun smith, designed and held the patenteds on almost every automatic weapons that the United States used in the second world. The light and the heavy machine guns and the fabulous 1911 pistol that was in Front Line Service for 75 years and still is today. He was a true american genius. Higgins boat. I thought that was fascinating. Hes another boot strapper success story. Established a privately owned Boat Building Company in new orleans and he anticipated before the navy, the need for mass produced Landing Craft in event of not a war but the next war. The generic called the higgins bullet, it was the Landing Craft, vehicle and personnel. That made possible Amphibious Operations in every theater of action. I thought that was terrific. You finally cleared up for me various things about the kinds of airplanes that were used. We know about the b47 b17. Sorry. I have not realized that the douglas aircraft what you called the sky train c47 . Yes. It was a passenger plane that they managed to turn into a personnel carrier . Thats right. It was the revolutionary douglas dc33 airliner dating from mid to late 1930s. The Army Air Core recognized this has tremendous potential not only as a transport but it can deliver paratroops. We could not have conducted the Normandy Campaign as we did without c47s and gliders. Otherwise you would have transported everybody by ship. We won the war in the atlantic by overwhelming force by 1943. Yes. The turning point in the bat battle of the atlanta became may of 1943. The number of sinkings of merchant vessels that were taken supplies to britain build up to dday, fell below the number of german submarines that were being sunk. Essentially the battle of the atlantic was one 13 months before dday. The theme of the book for germans is better equipped and probably better strategy and better training, Everything Else there werent enough of them. Once they developed a worldwide theater. Several times in the book, you say they were just too thin. They didnt have enough. Basically, as long as everything didnt fall to them or attrition will win. They did not have the sustain the sustainability that the allies did. Deception. You have a section about attempt to convince the germans the landing will not be in normandy in omaha and other beaches. Correct. There was lengthy complex plan called body guard of lives. Definitive book on the subject. There was a multitiered plan to deceive the germans that the landings would take place. If you look at the map, its the logical crossing point. Its barely 25 miles from from across the channel. We had turned german intelligence agents. Caught them, made them an offer they couldnt refuse. Either you feed false information to your masters in germany or you have a date with 12 gentlemen with 303 rifles. That combined with signals intelligence sending false information that the we knew germans would intercept. George patton was a big part of the deception. He was given command of a nonexistent army an organization of probably eight or ten divisions. Thats why he was so visible throughout benefit in the britain in the days leading up to it. So that the germans would keep focus on him. His appearances coincided it seemed with the plan landings. Didnt mention it, any of you watch the ian fleming three part bio on television earlier in year . Fleming was crazy in many ways. One reason he wrote great james bond golfs because of that. He was effective agents of british because of his fiction ability. He had a plan to actually take a course. I dont think he killed anybody and dress it in uniform and put information on it about where the landing would be and float it off. You didnt mention it. I never known it that was true or powerful. It was called operation it isnt in your book. No, it deceived the germans as to where the sicily landings would be. Its sicily and not normandy. But a wonderful concept. He was probably a british sailor. Royal marine majors uniform with a briefcase handcuffed. The spanish recovered the wreckage. Immediately told the germans hey, look what we have. That deceived them as to where the sicilian landings would occur. If any of you interested in following this he gets to go do stuff. He shows up in ought of these theaters. In most recent book, he is in england right before Operation Overlord launches. He writes about one of the screw ups. He said at one point when they were doing Training Exercise on the beach, the south coast of england merged some beaches and france. They drained them there. The navy got their signals crossed. That was Operation Tiger which was dress rehearsal for some of the American Forces that were going to land in normandy. The germans had a class of torpedo boats that he called ash boats. We called them eboats. Two the german torpedo boats penetrated. American ships with heavy loss of life. I think about 400 americans were killed. Operation tiger therefore became classified until the end of the war. Its interesting to watch the internet revelations about every 10 to 12 years somebody discovers the coverup and say look what happened. Its been known since the late 1940s. Overlord was the name of the overall thing. But then there was operation neptune . Was that the naval part . Correct. The the whole operation was neptune overlord. Of course, you cant have amphibious operation without a naval aspect. Neptune involved ships from about five allied nations. Not just u. S. And britain but canada, which had the Third Largest navy in world war ii and then there were individual ships from free france and poland. It really was a multinational endeavor. I will say, you achieved a wonderful balance. Even though youre clearly an aviation junkie. Theres a lot in here about the navy and the army. You give great space to the air force and the planes that it flew as well as the american and the world canadian air force. Its fascinating. I thought. I particularly like the phonic alphabet. Alpha bravo. You have a chart with the u. S. Version and german version. I thought the choice of names was really fun. Sometimes they were the same like king and king. But the german ones were the germans were on time, bruno, ceasar, doro. They had a word a alludes me theres a new thriller out. Those are the three code words in the british side of it. Theres a lot you can learn from this book that i found completely fascinating. I marked a couple of things. You got all kinds of extra stuff in here like dday movies and the dday museum. The fact that they didnt destroy the tappestry. I think the other thing that i saved was your entry on john ford. Which we talked about. He was promoted to admiral and got president ial medal of freedom. I was reading the new york times, that newsprint does not make a great bookmark. Okay, the other operation that i forgot to mention was operation cobra. That was the over all allied plan to break out from the normandy bridge head. Highly complex evolution because it required the british and the americans to coordinate not only the Ground Forces but the air power was intended to blast a path through the german areas inland from normandy. It met with mixed success as i explained in the encyclopedia. Well intention, heavy bombers did not have well defined aim point. A lot of their bombs fell short